Joe Biden Announces He Will Not Join 2016 Presidential Race

On Oct. 21, Vice President Joe Biden announced he will not seek the Democratic party’s nomination in the 2016 presidential race.

Biden, 72, had been considering a presidential run for several weeks. The vice president was seen as an interesting wild card that could potentially shake up what would otherwise have been a two-horse race between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

"I believe we're out of time, the time necessary to mount a winning campaign for the nomination," Biden said in a statement at the White House, according to NBC News.

"As my family and I have worked through the grieving process, I've said all along ... It may very well be that that process, by the time we get through it, closes the window on mounting a realistic campaign for president, that it might close," Biden added. "I've concluded that it is closed."

If Biden had run, he would have had to work hard to garner enough support to get the Democratic nomination. According to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Biden only had the backing of 15 percent of Democratic primary voters, compared to Clinton's 49 percent and Sanders' 29 percent.